1. Field of Art
The disclosure generally relates to the field of mobile communication, in particular to discovering applications for mobile computing devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile computing devices such as smart phones have become part of everyday life and their usage is on the increase. As a result, more and more mobile computing device users (“mobile users”) treat their mobile computing devices as a major source of information and use them to retrieve, store, process, and/or display information.
Frequently, information on a mobile computing device includes contents that require special handling. For example, content such as a mathematical formula may need special processing for proper presentation. The information may also include contents associated with additional information of the mobile user's interest. For example, a mobile user reading a short message including a movie's name is likely to be interested in show time information for the movie in local theaters. These contents are collectively called rich content. Many widgets have been developed to properly handle (or process) various types of rich content. For example, some widgets are developed to display mathematical formulas in proper format, and some other widgets are developed to provide local information (e.g., weather information) for a given geographic location. These widgets make the mobile computing devices more useful and are desirable to the mobile users. However, there is no easy mechanism for mobile users to discover widgets of interest.
Traditionally, in order to discover a widget suited for certain rich content, mobile users must search for it on Internet search engines, online forums, and/or other similar venues. However, mobile users may not necessarily know where to look for widgets, what widgets they need, or even whether they need any widget at all. Therefore, even though many interesting and useful widgets have been developed and are available for the mobile users, most users do not use the widgets.
From the above, there is a need in the art for a system and method for discovering widgets for mobile computing devices.